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TUBE TALK Endangered ''Nightline'' host Ted Koppel is taking yet another in-house hit from an unlikely source, the man who follows him at 12:05 a.m. ''Politically Incorrect'' host Bill Maher marvels at all the handwringing over ABC's cavalier treatment of Koppel during its negotiations with David Letterman to take over the 11:35 slot. ''What is a little galling is that for six years on ABC, we had to live with 'Nightline' as the ultimate sacred cow,'' Maher told the Seattle Times. Criticizing Koppel as a lead-in, Maher said, ''You could never ask Ted Koppel to do anything. He never asked viewers to watch 'Politically Incorrect' after his show; instead, he'd tell them to go to nightline.com. Suddenly, he's not a sacred cow -- he's a slaughtered cow.'' Maher agreed with the anonymous ABC executive who said ''Nightline'' was no longer relevant in a 24-hour cable news universe. ''The idea now that news is somehow threatened is ridiculous. It's around the clock, and that's why 'Nightline' is expendable.'' Such criticism seems odd coming from Maher, whose show is even more of a lame duck than Koppel's; Letterman or no Letterman, ''PI'' is almost certain to be canceled, and no one inside or outside ABC is up in arms over the network's treatment of Maher. Then again, maybe it's the inevitability of his show's demise that he feels gives him license; what more can ABC do to him?... Call it ''The Prince Diaries.'' ABC is airing a ''Wonderful World of Disney'' movie this fall called ''Prince William,'' a biopic of the British royal heir. Produced by Fox Television Pictures and shooting in England this spring, it'll trace William's life from the 1997 death of his mother Princess Diana, when he was 15, to the present. Of William and the rest of the Windsors, ABC executive Quinn Taylor told Variety, ''They're just a family trying to struggle through [William's teen years] with this tremendous spotlight on them.'' (Sort of like MTV's ''The Osbournes.'') Don't expect a sequel soon, given the un-Disney-like antics of younger brother Prince Harry.


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